How rich is 'rich'?
Jul 11 2007 02:28
So how much money do you have to have to be considered rich?
Jul 11 2007 03:02
#2
Yeah as lem says it is relative..
Remember the woman I posted about that i met who said that since having a child her and her husband were just about managing to get by on a reduced joint income of just under a £1m after previously being on £1.1m.. ???
The "rich enough " thing is a desperate desperate trap as whatever peer group so called wealthy people find themselves in they will feel compelled due to our societies values, the nature of wealth creation and their own psychology to compete, attain, achieve and have the most to show, to display.. even if they succeed they move into the next peer group - so a millionaire feels inadequate next to the multi-millionaires who resent the billionaires and so on. Tbh it is a nightmare ordinary peeps are well out of!!
As Wallis Simpson said all those years ago "You can never be too rich or too thin" and i think sadly in these days of heightened consumer obsessiveness and the size zero thing her words are truer than ever... 
Still if you can see through it for the charade it is then that is good and it means we can concentrate on drawing to us and fighting for the resources we actually want and need.. as opposed to what peeps believe will make them feel rich, wealthy and secure when in fact that is not the case ....i mean who could be more paranoid and walledoff than the ultrarich with their guard dogs and barbed wire gates and stuff ...
Love
LW XX
Jul 11 2007 03:06
#3
you can be too thin LW. honestly anarchists are just all weird 
eta: yeah sorry, just that i did a module that involved learning about anaroxia. it;s seriously fucked, people die from it, etc.. but of course "you know that".
Jul 11 2007 03:22
#4
lem wrote:
you can be too thin LW. honestly anarchists are just all weirdeta: yeah sorry, just that i did a module that involved learning about anaroxia. it;s seriously fucked, people die from it, etc.. but of course "you know that".
Yeah no worries lem - course you can be too thin i.e. dead..lol [black humour - i have been bulimarexic therefore i can make the jokes... 
] . but Wallis point, sadly well made, is of the historically desirable ultrathin physique... particularly amongst the rich because the aspiration is ALWAYS that which is hardest to attain if not impossible therefore for those surrounded by abundance the challenge will be ultrarestraint, the challenge for the poor is plumpness cos it denotes wealth etc etc.
Anyways will start a separate thread on this topic another time cos i seem to remember last time i spoke about this some people doubted my wisdom 
tho JK was down with it.. capital needs lack to operate etc etc.
Love
LW X
Jul 11 2007 04:10
#5
EdmontonWobbly wrote:
So how much money do you have to have to be considered rich?
Anyone that can afford to eat on a regular basis is a sellout.
Jul 11 2007 04:26
#6
Too bad "rich in spirit" doesn't put pork chops on the table...unless you get organized.
Jul 11 2007 12:17
#7
if you can afford home contents insurance, have a savings account where money goes in regular but doesnt come out, use your phone without worrying about how much the calls are costing you, life insurance, a pension, a private dentist, own more than two pairs of shoes, can afford to buy new clothes for a single event (like a party or someone elses wedding), and go on holiday every year, that sort of stuff, then i reckon you must qualify as pretty damn rich.
Jul 11 2007 12:21
#8
maybe you could work it out like they work out the poverty level. so like everyone who has a wage/income under 60% of the median (about £480 a week for men, £380 a week for women, in full time work) is considered to be living in poverty. so then maybe everyone earning 60% above that could be considered feeelthy rich.
Jul 11 2007 12:27
#9
arf's internet richometer:
You ...
1. can afford home contents insurance
2. have a savings account where money goes in regular but doesn't come out
3. use your phone without worrying about how much the calls are costing you
4. can afford life insurance
5. have a pension
6. have a private dentist
7. own more than two pairs of shoes
8. can afford to buy new clothes for a single event (like a party or someone elses wedding)
9. go on holiday every year
i reckon i'm 22% rich. if i had a credit card and used it like my flatmate, i'd be 33-44% rich. this is definitely an authoritative measure.
Jul 11 2007 12:27
#10
Quote:
so then maybe everyone earning 60% above that could be considered feeelthy rich
Your median income in this example?
Has anyone ever seen one of those pay graphs?
In Britain the graph follows a bell curve, then there is a huger gap on the right and an exponential jump right up at the end for the ruling class.
Jul 11 2007 12:32
#11
got a link? that would be interesting. compared to the graphs i'm supposed to be making for a living anyway.
Jul 11 2007 12:41
#12
so? so using the mens median, of £480/week, the poverty line at 40% of that is an income of £192 a week or £9984/year (presumably thats per person). but my feelthy rich line, at median plus 60%, would be around £768 a week, or £39,936/year. If you're obsessed with figures and relating people to each other that way this seems like a fairly reasonable way to go about it. People on 40k seem pretty fucking rich to me.
Jul 11 2007 12:42
#13
I think Mercedes/Audi/BMW/Landrover ownership is the key. Anyone who can afford a high-end one new is stowing serious money in the bank.
Jul 11 2007 12:44
#14
arf, isn't the poverty line 60% of median income?
Jul 11 2007 13:10
#15
arf wrote:
People on 40k seem pretty fucking rich to me.
That's balls. I bet most people on 40k are like the rest of us about 3 pay checks from destitution. Especially if they have a partner and a kid or two.
I'd say someone was rich if they never had to work again. Say they have property and holdings of about £2m.
Jul 11 2007 13:31
#16
how much interest would you get on a million in the bank? 5% would be £50k a year without touching the principal. i need a million quid
Jul 11 2007 13:35
#17
Quote:
That's balls. I bet most people on 40k are like the rest of us about 3 pay checks from destitution. Especially if they have a partner and a kid or two.
I guess the question here is disposable income. It's always notable that young people earning far less but with much less bills to pay etc tend to have more money to burn. Does that mean they are richer? God we could get pretty fucked up with circuitous arguments. I think the key thing is that whatever you're earning, you are still basically exploited unless you're the bastard living the life of Reilly of your share capital.
Jul 11 2007 13:37
#18
Quote:
5% would be £50k a year without touching the principle. i need a million quid
There are banks for the rich which would earn you seven. You could take 50k, then invest 20k every year.
Jul 11 2007 15:02
#19
Dundee_United wrote:
Quote:
5% would be £50k a year without touching the principle. i need a million quidThere are banks for the rich which would earn you seven. You could take 50k, then invest 20k every year.
Nah inflation's at 4.5%, so you couldn't get much from it. Still you could buy a couple of properties with it and make money that way, but it'd be hard to take that much for it, that's why I reckon you'd need 2.
Jul 11 2007 15:04
#20
if dundee's right, 7 - 4.5 = 2.5% = £25k p/a. that's still pretty sweet for doing fuck all
Jul 11 2007 15:21
#21
Do we really have to explain this shit?!IT'S THE RULING CLASS!!!
Jul 11 2007 15:58
#22
Yeah, I can't really see what the point is about trying to work out how you define what 'rich' is, I don't have a problem with people having x amount of money, it's how they've got it that I have a problem with (i.e. extracting surplus value, collecting rent, inheritance etc.).
Jul 11 2007 16:42
#23
I dunno I'm just curious, by arf's standards I'm rich, there's no way in hell I could afford a land rover, but I do have the lowest end toyota I can get. I put away money faster than I spend it, when I'm working full time I make about $42,000 a year. I just realised too that you folks mostly being London (one of the most expensive places on earth) skews it a bit. 1 million quid, or 2 million dollars is a lot of cash out here, if you managed it right you wouldn't have to ever work again and could live rather comfortably.
Jul 11 2007 17:02
#24
Joseph K. wrote:
3. use your phone without worrying about how much the calls are costing you
7. own more than two pairs of shoes
8. can afford to buy new clothes for a single event (like a party or someone elses wedding)
9. go on holiday every year
competitive mobile phone rates have made 3. available to all off peak, the british high street (esp Primark and its lesser relatives, and street markets) have made 7. and 8. available to all, and 9. wtf, who doesn't at least try.
Rich: indisputably rich is owning several properties.
Jul 11 2007 18:53
#25
Joseph K. wrote:
arf, isn't the poverty line 60% of median income?
if it is then im very seriously below it
i was taking the piss but im surprised anyone would not think 40 grand a year didnt count as pretty damn wealthy.
Jul 11 2007 21:40
#26
Sorry, Arf. You're wrong, I reckon. But then, that's what I earn. Technically, if you earn over £21,000 you are in the richest 5% on the planet.
Rich people get other people to do their work for them. Or could easily afford to if they wanted to.
Jul 11 2007 22:49
#27
arf wrote:
i was taking the piss but im surprised anyone would not think 40 grand a year didnt count as pretty damn wealthy.
If you're on £40k pa, you're fairly well off, relative to the majority of people, but you're hardly filthy rich.
You're really rich when you could live quite comfortably without working, the rest is all relative. If you spoke to people in Darfur about your lifestyle, they'd think you were fucking minted.
Jul 12 2007 00:32
#28
Look, I just want to know if I'm supposed to kill my friend when the Rev comes.
Jul 12 2007 00:54
#29
Saii wrote:
I think Mercedes/Audi/BMW/Landrover ownership is the key. Anyone who can afford a high-end one new is stowing serious money in the bank.
I know someone who gets paid around £23-26K/year, lives in a council flat and has a new Audi (partly funded via motability scheme, very, very much genuine). So ner.
Jul 12 2007 01:14
#30
every estate i ever go to, the cars there are swish shit. it confuses me tbh.
depends who you are really. earning 10k more than whatever you are?? that's pounds.
i mean over a lifetime that's 400k